I left the Prescott area and decided
to head back to Las Vegas via Bagdad. I had never been to that desolate part
of
Arizona. Plus I had a friend from school (NAU) who got a job at the mine there.
So I decided to drive over, and take a
peak in the mine.

I had once told a guy at work that
when he took his family on vacation to Arizona, he could consider visiting some
copper mines. For some reason that didn't go over too well. So, I that was icing
on the cake as to me stopping for
a visit. Unfortunately, there wasn't an overlook! The road went for miles from
the highway turn-off, then went
through the tiny town and you couldn't see the mine past the gate on the one
road!

I stopped at the grocery store in
town and picked up some food from the deli. A Japanese woman helped me. I asked
how she wound up in Bagdad. She'd met her husband who was in the US military.
She didn't know she'd be moving to as
tiny and remote a town as Bagdad! Talk about culture shock! Not to mention that
Bagdad isn't too much like the American
you'd see on TV!

These pictures are the saguaros on
the road from Prescott to Bagdad.

When I was stymied at Bagdad, I drove
back to Las Vegas. Darn if I could not find a place to camp! The official campground
was full. I drove way, way around to the far side of the NW arm of Lake Mead.
There was a construction area and I pulled
behind a huge pile of fill and laid my sleeping bag on the ground. In the later
middle of the night (as it was quite late by the
time I found this place), someone drove up to the closed bathroom. It woke me
up and kind of freaked me out. I just didn't
feel all that safe around Vegas.